A weekend of connecting deeply with trees in diverse ways, from identifying species and understanding basic tree biology, to intimate sensory experience and deep soulful connection.
Short Courses
Fri, 11/09/2020 to Sun, 13/09/2020
With Kara Moses and Robin Bowman
Mon, 21/09/2020 to Fri, 23/10/2020
With Professor Eve Mitleton-Kelly, Dr Andy Letcher, Stephan Harding, Jonathan Dawson and Allan Kaplan
Breakthroughs over the last century in holistic science suggest that our old ways of understanding the world – linear, mechanistic, competitive – are flawed and that living systems are more characterised by interdependence, symbiosis and networks. Beginning from an understanding that the economy is also a living system, we explore how these emerging principles of healthy, regenerative systems translate into the socio-economic realm.
Booking deadline: TBC
Fri, 25/09/2020 to Sun, 27/09/2020
With Satish Kumar and June Mitchell
Participate in a weekend meditating, walking and spending time in nature away from the daily stresses of life and discover the importance of bringing soul into the heart of everything you do.
Booking deadline: 14 August 2020*
Mon, 05/10/2020 to Fri, 09/10/2020
With Fiona Tilley
Immerse yourself for a week in the vibrant community of Schumacher College. This course is designed to give you space to enquire into what has meaning in your life, and what role you wish to play in the world, while also being inspired and invigorated by some of the concepts and ideas the college is based upon and participating in the rich daily life of the Schumacher community.
Booking deadline: 24 August 2020
Mon, 12/10/2020 to Fri, 23/10/2020
With Jenny Mackewn, Satish Kumar, Stephan Harding, Mac Macartney, Rob Hopkins and Dan Burgess
Led by Jenny Mackewn, with special contributors and teachers Satish Kumar, Stephan Harding, Mac Macartney, Rob Hopkins and Dan Burgess. This is a unique course introducing you to inspiring teachers and thinkers supporting you to develop your own personal leadership qualities and achieve your goals.
Join us for an eight-month journey that consists of: A period of preparation, a residential intensive and an 8 month community of practice through Virtual or Face-to-Face meeting.
Thu, 22/10/2020 to Sun, 25/10/2020
With Robin Rose Saltonstall, PhD
Living ‘both/and’ is a leitmotif in the pilgrimage of ageing and is an essential undertaking in the journey to health and well-being in the second half of life. Come spend an immersive weekend at Schumacher exploring neuroscientific findings on the remarkable and growing capacities of your maturing brain, theories of complementarity from quantum physics and modes of self inquiry and discovery drawn from art, psychology, story, and wisdom traditions designed to help you choreograph your own healthy, potent, and wise second half of life dance.
Booking Deadline: 18 August 2020
Fri, 13/11/2020 to Sun, 15/11/2020
With Ellen Rignell, Ashley Wheeler and Jane Gleeson
Seeds are the foundation of life. So why is it that we pay so little attention to them? Join us to discover the history and politics of seed production; discuss the steps to UK seed sovereignty and learn the fundamentals seed production.
Booking Deadline: 6 October 2020
Mon, 16/11/2020 to Wed, 18/11/2020
With Julia Ponsonby, Colum Pawson and Caroline Walker
For our Gaia's Kitchen short course, we will cook together a menu of lunches and suppers using garden produce and including some favourite menus inspired by our college cookbooks. We may also prepare chutneys, sauerkraut, minced fruit for mince pies, Christmas pudding and fruit cake which you can take home.
Booking deadline: 12 October 2020
Thu, 19/11/2020 to Sat, 21/11/2020
With Stephan Harding, Colum Pawson and Jo Hardy
The coronavirus lockdown forced us into a period of isolation and introspection at the very time of year we are normally emerging into Spring from a long hibernation. Join us for a gentle weekend of peaceful activities [optional] designed to help you ease yourself back into the wider world, reconnect with others and restore your equilibrium.
Booking deadline: 8 October 2020
Wed, 25/11/2020 to Fri, 27/11/2020
With Dr Andy Letcher, Colin Campbell and Selena King
Animism is the worldview that sees the world as alive and full of people, only some of whom are human. How might the world be different if we returned to animism? Can we learn to be animists again?
Booking deadline: 14 October 2020
Fri, 12/02/2021 to Sun, 14/02/2021
With Satish Kumar and June Mitchell
This is a chance to spend an intimate weekend, hosted by Satish Kumar to consider the role of love in our lives and how we can use it to live in a more fulfilling way. It will be an opportunity for discussion and deep reflection, incorporating the wisdom of poets and mystics, to consider the most powerful force on earth.
Booking deadline: 1 January 2021
Mon, 15/03/2021 to Thu, 01/04/2021
With Jonathan Dawson
This course provides an opportunity for a deep dive, in the company of internationally recognised scientists, writers and artists in various media, into the science underlying the process by which we make sense of the world and how we can use this knowledge to become more effective communicators in the service of liberation. In addition to a study of the science underlying effective communication, there will be ample opportunity for solo and/or collaborative creativity, coached by our team of writers and artists.
Booking Deadline: 1 February 2021
Mon, 22/03/2021 to Fri, 26/03/2021
With Jenny Mackewn and Robert Poynton
Our beautiful planet earth is under pressure, her diverse habitats are being destroyed, her wild animals are going extinct, What must we do?
We need to develop and deepen our Wild Facilitation skills and use these creative methodologies to collaborate with individuals, groups, teams, communities, organizations and governments so that we can work together to serve and save the earth. We need to act fast.
Booking Deadline: 8 February 2021
Mon, 29/03/2021 to Thu, 01/04/2021
With Stephan Harding, Satish Kumar and Dr Fiona Tilley
There is an ever-growing rise in people choosing to take time out of their daily lives to walk pilgrimage routes in the UK and other well-known place around the world. This course will explore the different ways intentional walks are nourishing people’s lives; from the Deep Time Walk, to forest bathing, to sacred pilgrimages and labyrinths to protest walks and pilgrimages for change. During the week there will be an opportunity to experience different styles of pilgrimage as well as meet those who have crafted the art of being a pilgrim in their lives.
Booking deadline: 19 Feb 2021
Fri, 09/04/2021 to Sun, 11/04/2021
With Satish Kumar and June Mitchell
Participate in a weekend meditating, walking and spending time in nature away from the daily stresses of life and discover the importance of bringing soul into the heart of everything you do.
Booking deadline: 26 February 2021*
Fri, 16/04/2021 to Sun, 18/04/2021
With Ruairi Edwards and Christine Cairns
Discover who you are through song. This is a chance to find your own authentic voice with the support of a community of like-minded people. Maybe you are part of a choir and need the courage to step into the limelight? Maybe you want to sing but lack the confidence? Led by Ruairi Edwards – one of the UK’s most sought-after choral conductors and vocal coaches, this course offers the unique combination of individual attention to developing your technique combined with the sheer joy of experiencing communal voice.
Booking deadline: 5 March 2021
Mon, 26/04/2021 to Fri, 30/04/2021
With Martin Crawford, Caroline Aitken and Jane Gleeson
Learn how to design, implement, and maintain forest gardens and other sustainable agroecological systems. Participants will experience both recently planted and well established 25-year old forest gardens, as well as other agroforestry in and around Dartington.Includes sessions on harvesting, preserving and cooking with forest garden produce.
Booking deadline: 15 March 2021
Mon, 26/04/2021 to Fri, 30/04/2021
With Per Ingvar Haukeland and Stephan Harding
As the global crisis deepens, there is renewed interest in deep ecology as a philosophical and practical foundation for compassionate engagement with the world’s problems. This course brings deep ecology right up to date by reviving our deep ecological senses with new ways for connecting to our place and to the community of all beings and by developing our own personal ecological wisdom using the powerful Tree of Life model.
Booking Deadline: 15 March 2021*
Mon, 10/05/2021 to Fri, 14/05/2021
With Dr Iain McGilchrist , Satish Kumar and June Mitchell
We have impoverished our understanding of the world by focussing so much on mechanism. The proper relationship of the two brain hemispheres is one that balances head and heart; one that gives weight to reason, intuition and imagination.
It is this connection that offers us remarkable insights into the unique harmony between ancient wisdom and cutting-edge neuroscience.
Booking Deadline: 29 March 2021
Sat, 15/05/2021 to Wed, 19/05/2021
With Prof Rupert Read, Deepak Rughani, Skeena Rathor and Kanada Elizabeth Gorla
The idea of this course is to investigate deeply the spiritual orientation(s) that best suits the country’s growing truth-telling, Non-Violent Direct Action (NVDA) movements - movements that are almost certainly our last chance at averting or softening societal collapse.
Booking Deadline: 3 April 2021*
Tue, 01/06/2021 to Fri, 04/06/2021
With Satish Kumar and Thomas d’Ansembourg
A practical workshop to learn the basics of the NonViolent Communication process according to Dr. Marshall Rosenberg.
Participants will be invited to actively participate.
Course deadline: 21 April 2021*
Mon, 07/06/2021 to Fri, 18/06/2021
With Jenny Mackewn
Led by Jenny Mackewn, with special contributors. This is a unique course introducing you to inspiring teachers and thinkers supporting you to develop your own personal leadership qualities and achieve your goals.
Join us for an eight-month journey that consists of: A period of preparation, a residential intensive and an 8 month community of practice through Virtual or Face-to-Face meeting.
Booking deadline: 26 April 2021
Mon, 21/06/2021 to Wed, 30/06/2021
With Terry Irwin, Gideon Kossoff and Cameron Tonkinwise
This course provides an introduction to Transition Design, a new approach to seeding positive, systems-level change and catalysing the transition of entire societies toward more sustainable long-term futures.
Booking deadline: 21 March 2021
Thu, 08/07/2021 to Sun, 11/07/2021
With Emma Clark, Satish Kumar and June Mitchell
Gardening has a profound impact on the heart and soul. There will be talks by Satish Kumar on how we are all connected via the profound spiritual essence that is Nature and how through gardening we can connect intimately with nature; and by an expert on Islamic gardens, Emma Clark, on how gardening may be seen as a sacred art and on the spiritual symbolism of the Paradise Garden. Your experience will also include walks around the beautiful Dartington grounds and Qigong bamboo exercises led by the well-known and experienced practitioner June Mitchell.
Booking Deadline: 27 May 2021
Fri, 30/07/2021 to Fri, 06/08/2021
With Colin Campbell, Lucy Hinton, Andrew McAulay, Satish Kumar and Wewo Kotokay
Join Colin Campbell, Lucy Hinton and Andrew McAulay for a process of deep ritual and bring together two areas of practice; nature vigil, and breathwork techniques. This is a chance for relational interaction to contribute to the regeneration of people, and the 'other-than-human' kin who speak a language that is both strange and achingly familiar.
Booking Deadline: 30 April 2021*
Fri, 06/08/2021 to Sun, 08/08/2021
With Jane Gleeson, Colum Pawson and Julia Ponsonby
This course will set you up with the basics of how to garden in a way that looks after the people, the plants and the whole ecosystem. Learn how to sow seeds, make great compost, look after your soil all in a way that restores the connection between human life and soil life.
Booking Deadline: 25 June 2021*
Mon, 06/09/2021 to Fri, 10/09/2021
With Dr Chris Johnstone and Professor David Peters
At a time of uncertainty in our world, the learnable skills of personal resilience strengthen our capacity to deal with difficult situations and rise to the occasion. Drawing upon psychological, relational and eco-spiritual perspectives, the course focuses on ways to cultivate resilience in ourselves (me), in other people (you), and within the teams, groups or communities we belong to (us).
Booking Deadline: 26 July 2021*